Paris: French police evacuate 1,200 migrants from last camps

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Police cleared out two more makeshift Paris migrant camps early on Monday morning, including 800 people who had been living in squalid conditions along the Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement.

The operation began at 6.30 am at Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement of Paris where some 800 migrants, mostly Afghans, have been living for several months.

The police also evacuated a camp of around 300-400 migrants at Porte de la Chapelle (18th arrondissement).

The Paris police said that the migrants would first be sheltered before a "thorough examination of their situation was carried out by the authorities."

Scores of discarded tents are torn down along the Canal Saint Martin in Paris after the last migrant camp was cleared out this morning. How long until the next one springs up? pic.twitter.com/aKdtDnJpQG

The St Martin Canal is near the site of a sprawling former camp by the Stalingrad Metro stop, which was cleared only to spring up again several times
last year.

This is the second operation of its kind to happen in just a few days, with the biggest migrant camp in the French capital evacuated last Wednesday.

This was known as the "Millenaire" or Millennium camp and was home to around 1,700 mainly Sudanese, Somali and Eritrean migrants.

The migrants were to be housed temporarily at more than 20 sites across the Paris region while the authorities checked their identities, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a statement.

The Local reported the announcement on May 24th from France's Interior Ministry that thousands of migrants living in camps along stretches of canal in Paris were set to be moved out "quickly" in the 35th evacuation to have taken place in the French capital since summer 2015.

Around 2,300 migrants have been living in makeshift camps along the canals in the north east of the French capital for months.

Firefighters sail an inflatable boat next to a makeshift camp during its evacuation by police. Photo: AFP

The Interior Ministry asked the Paris police to step in to evacuate the camps, saying that Paris City Hall had "regrettably" failed to "request the evacuation of the public area" themselves.

Today the camps pose "humanitarian issues" that "are no longer bearable for Parisians," Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb said, stressing that "the role of the City of Paris will be essential in the preparation of this operation because if the camps are reconstructed" it will have been "useless".

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